


I-Don't-Spy

by Rheanna



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-31
Updated: 2008-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rheanna/pseuds/Rheanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All right, then, you suggest something."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I-Don't-Spy

It's a six hour journey by jumper from the planet to the Gate orbiting its distant moon, and there's nothing to do during it except stare out the window at the magnificent but, Rodney has decided, actually very boring vista of stars.

"Prime/not prime," he says.

"No," Sheppard replies at once. "That got old about two years ago."

Annoyed, Rodney says, "All right, then, you suggest something."

"Okay, I will," Sheppard says, and immediately falls silent.

Rodney waits for a minute or more then prompts, a tad smugly, "Well?"

"Uh, twenty questions."

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."

"I-don't-spy."

"And that's strike two --" Rodney starts, then mentally reprocesses what he just heard. "Wait. I don't spy?"

Sheppard's mouth bends into a kind of half-smile. "Yeah. We used to play it in the desert. You try to play regular I-spy, pretty soon you run out of words that mean 'sand'. So I invented I-don't-spy."

"Let me guess," Rodney says, following through the mangled yet somehow strangely compelling logic of that, "you can choose anything except what you can see."

Sheppard clicks his fingers and points at him. "You got it."

"That's a ridiculous game," Rodney says. "The possible choices are literally infinite. How is the person guessing supposed to win?"

"You just don't like the idea of losing at something."

"I do not," Rodney fumes.

"I'll let you go first."

"This is completely --" Rodney starts, and then he gives up. "Fine. Yes. Something beginning with E."

Sheppard frowns at him. "You have to do it properly."

Rodney takes a deep breath, mentally counts to ten and says, slowly, "I don't spy with my little eye something beginning with E."

"The Eiffel Tower," Sheppard says cheerfully.

Rodney looks at him.

"It's not the Eiffel Tower," Sheppard says. He glances sideways at Rodney, and his expression changes. "It _is_ the Eiffel Tower."

"How did you do that? And if you say the Ancient gene, I warn you now, I will kill you."

"I don't know," Sheppard says. "I just… thought of things starting with E that aren't here, and that was the first thing that came to mind."

"Huh," Rodney says. "Me too." He thinks for a moment and then asks, "Do you think we're rubbing off on each other?"

"Someone would've told us," Sheppard says.

"Yes. I'm sure they would've," Rodney says, feeling not as reassured as he would like. He clears his throat. "Maybe we should play something else."

"Good idea," Sheppard agrees.  
***  
"Seven thousand, seven hundred and eighty-nine."

"Prime."

"Your go."


End file.
